Chapter 232: You Would Have Been Eaten
“Heejin, bring some arrows from inside.”
“Okay.”
“Minjae. When I give the signal, shine the flashlight. Taehyun, keep watching those people with the drone.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll get the oil ready too.”
After the rapid exchange, the sound of busy movement came from the floating platform.
'Not bad.'
Junho was inwardly impressed by how the five high school students responded.
Each of them had a clearly divided role, and their ability to act was so different from ordinary people that they were better than most adult survivors.
—Distance approximately seventy meters. Estimated arrival within one minute.
At Akina’s voice, Junho lifted Purdy, who was floating right beside him wearing a life jacket, and placed him onto the floating platform.
It was a dark rainy night, and the floating platform was fairly large, so the high school students did not realize Purdy had climbed up on the rear side.
“I’m starting now.”
—Yep.
With only his head above the water, Junho activated the underwater scooter.
Soon, he circled around the floating platform and quickly advanced toward the two boats carrying the men.
***
Junho’s figure as he approached the boats, cutting through the rain-pelted surface of the reservoir, was like a pitch-black shark.
After reaching the side-rear of the boats in just over twenty seconds, Junho checked the raiders visible through his wide-angle night vision goggles, took in a large breath, and quietly dove underwater. Since the goggles were already waterproof to begin with and had been waterproofed once more, there was no concern that the night vision goggles would be damaged.
Junho’s physical abilities had evolved after hunting several Alphas, and his lung capacity had increased greatly as well.
If he stayed still underwater, he could manage nearly ten minutes, and if he was swimming or making active movements, he could manage four or five minutes.
Because of that, he could dive about one meter below the surface and use the underwater scooter to approach the direction he had set in advance without any problem.
Before long, after arriving beneath the lead boat, Junho checked the distance he had traveled on the underwater scooter’s display.
'Forty-two meters....'
That was also the distance between this boat and the floating platform.
Still submerged, Junho attached the “something” he had prepared in advance to the bottom of the boat.
The adhesive was duct tape that boasted powerful adhesion even when wet, the same kind beloved by NASA astronauts and Formula 1.
Tap. Tap.
After carefully finishing the work so the men in the boat would not notice, Junho headed toward the other boat moving several meters away.
Junho moved slowly beneath the surface and clung to the rear of the boat following behind.
Just like the lead boat, the men in this boat also failed to notice his approach at all.
Underwater, Junho stretched his body out long, then quickly wound the piano wire that he had installed on the bottom of the first boat and extended all the way here.
Tack.
Then, the moment he felt something catch—
Junho yanked the line hard and counted in his mind.
'Five, four, three, two....'
Thuuuuung...!!!
The K413 fragmentation grenade attached to the bottom of the boat exploded.
A heavy vibration rang out, as though a massive hammer had struck upward from below, and the shock wave spread out violently.
But the situation underwater could not compare to the surface.
Booooom!!!
At the same time as the explosion burst, a column of water surged up, tearing through the hull.
The column of water that shot vertically upward in an instant pushed human bodies and the wreckage of the boat into the air and scattered them in every direction.
“Gah!?”
“Wh-what the hell!”
The men in the boat following behind let out cries of shock.
But because they had been following only five or six meters behind, the rising column of water surged toward them like a wave and struck the bow hard.
“Uaaaah!”
The boat tilted, and two men were thrown into the reservoir at the same time.
Swaaaaaa...!!!
“Kuh!”
The debris sprayed by the boat ahead rained down together with a deluge of water, and a man struck by a fragment of the boat collapsed with a death cry.
“Uaaaah!”
“Ugh, uuuugh...!”
The other two, hit by the shock from the sudden underwater explosion and drenched like they had been caught under a waterfall of water mixed with blood and unidentified pieces of flesh, lay sprawled where they were, unable to come to their senses.
“S-save me! Puhah! Urp... kuhp! Koff!”
Ignoring the two men flailing after falling into the dark reservoir, Junho grabbed the boat’s rail and abruptly climbed up onto the rear.
At the same time, now that he was out of the water and able to breathe properly, he drew in a large breath of air.
At that moment, an extremely foul and unpleasant stench mixed into the air rushed into Junho’s nose.
“......!”
At that nauseating smell, clearly different from the scent of blood, a smell he had encountered only once in his life but could never forget, Junho’s expression hardened.
Then he looked down at the three men in the boat, who still had not regained their senses, with eyes containing a chilling killing intent.
This stench was coming from them.
“Ugh... guh!? Wh-who....”
The instant one man saw Junho standing expressionlessly in the dark and turned deathly pale—
Swaak!
Slice!
The machete fired out like a flash of lightning and cut through his neck.
Splash! Thud! Thwack!
The headless corpse tilted and collapsed into the water.
As if that had been the signal, the machete swept through the diagonally falling spring rain as it flew, splitting the skull of another bastard and cutting through the torso of the third.
Those two also died instantly on the spot without even letting out screams.
After executing the three of them in an instant, Junho looked around.
Amid the floating wreckage of the boat, corpses, and body parts, the ones who had fallen into the water were flailing.
Among them, one bastard who seemed to be a fairly good swimmer was visible swimming frantically through the rainy reservoir.
“.......”
After silently looking around the boat, Junho picked up a piece of wreckage from the boat that had been blown apart by the grenade.
Junho grabbed a plank slightly larger than his palm, aimed it at the raider moving farther away while churning the water with his swimming, and threw it.
Shiiing...! Thwack!
The piece of plank flew through the rain, spinning at high speed, and embedded itself in the back of the raider’s head.
After confirming that the bastard’s face had plunged into the water, Junho watched as the men who had fallen in tried somehow to swim toward the boat he was standing on.
“Huhh, huhh...!”
Then one of them almost reached the boat and stretched his hand out from the water.
Junho immediately swung his arm.
Shwak! Thwack!
“Gaaaah!”
The machete came down the moment the man grabbed the rail, cutting off his wrist.
The bastard flailed as blood sprayed from the severed part, then soon disappeared beneath the surface.
And the other bastards, who seemed unable to swim properly and were thrashing around in the water in a complete frenzy, also vanished one by one into the black reservoir.
Swaaaa....
—No moving targets.
In the heavy rain, the reservoir that had swallowed twelve raiders—no, beasts—regained its peace once more.
***
Junho’s gaze, which had been looking around with sunken eyes, eventually stopped on the floating platform that had come within about twenty meters.
“......!!!”
The male student holding the flashlight, the male student controlling the drone, and the brother and sister holding recurve bows were standing in the pouring rain, staring this way with their mouths hanging open.
The eyes of the brats watching Junho, who had slaughtered more than ten people with a single blade in an instant in the middle of the reservoir on a rainy night, contained shock and terror.
But Junho did not care. He pulled down the mask soaked thoroughly with blood and water, brought his fingers to his mouth, and whistled sharply.
Piiiik!
At his master’s signal, Purdy, who had been lying quietly in the dark part of the floating platform, barked once.
“Uah!?”
At the sudden dog bark, the high school students were scared out of their wits, and soon the archery siblings aimed their bows toward where Purdy was.
But not only the arms holding the bows, but their entire bodies were trembling like aspens, so even if they shot, they did not seem likely to hit.
Click!
“Don’t move.”
“......!!!”
“You know I helped you, right? If you shoot my dog, you die too.”
At that murderous warning delivered while aiming the Glock 17, the siblings flinched in shock, and Junho raised his voice again.
“If you stand still just like that, he’ll approach you slowly. See what he’s wearing around his neck? Take it off and check it.”
Saying that, Junho rowed toward the floating platform, and during that time, Purdy slowly approached the high school students while gently wagging his tail.
Before long, after the boat arrived, Junho leapt up onto the floating platform.
With a German Shepherd the size of a calf and a large-bodied slaughterer in front and behind them, Junho spoke calmly to the high school students, who could only tremble.
“What are you doing? I told you to check what’s around his neck.”
“Yesh? Ah, yes, y-yes.”
The older brother among the archery siblings hurriedly nodded and cautiously reached his hand toward Purdy.
But perhaps because he had always been afraid of dogs, his hand was shaking like someone with tremors, and because he was too slow and frustrating, Junho added one more sentence.
“My dog doesn’t bite.”
“.......”
At that truly irresponsible statement, one that would have been better left unsaid, everyone shut their mouths.
***
“Huh? Youngjun? Hey, this is Youngjun, right?”
“What? That guy who’s ranked first in the whole school? Huh? This is Ihyeon, isn’t it? And this is Jiae from Class Two?”
Hanging from Purdy’s neck was a smartphone placed inside a zipper bag.
And the phone’s wallpaper was none other than the selfie sent by the three high school students living at Hanaareum Nursing Home.
“Yeondeok High School” had only three classes in each grade, so unless there was a special reason, students in the same year knew one another.
That was why Junho had decided to use the selfie taken by the nursing home kids he had rescued and was protecting as a kind of “identification.”
Even if he talked about those three without any proof, there was no way these kids would believe him straightforwardly.
Instead, they might think he had already harmed students from the same school, or their “friends.”
“If you know them, this will be quick. As you can see from the photo, they’re doing well with help from me and my companions.”
“Ah, yes....”
The five high school students had no choice but to nod.
If it had been an ordinary photo, that would have been one thing, but this had clearly been taken by the people themselves, and excitedly at that.
Who, in a world like this, would puff out their cheeks, make a V sign with their fingers, and even take selfies from a flattering angle to look pretty if they were being held against their will or abused?
Of course, the student ranked first in the whole school had a stiff expression and was terrible at taking selfies, but in the group photo with the other two girls, he was smiling faintly, at least.
“Um, then, mister, you and the people you called your companions were watching us this whole time since earlier today?”
At the words of Oh Seunga, the younger sister of the archery siblings, who was only two years older than Kim Hayoon, who would originally have been in her third year of middle school, Junho nodded.
“Yeah. We saw you and your brother shoot arrows and drive those bastards away earlier too. We even know you deliberately missed.”
“Ah...!”
Junho looked around at Oh Seungmin and Oh Seunga, who flinched, and at the other three students, then continued speaking indifferently.
“Whether you kill or spare someone is your choice, so I can’t say anything about that. But tell me. What do you think would have happened today if I hadn’t come?”
“......!”
Everyone’s eyes widened.
Soon, Oh Seungmin, whose expression had darkened, bit his lip and said,
“We probably... would have been in danger.”
“No.”
“...Excuse me?”
“It wouldn’t just have been danger. One or two of you would have died. And the rest of you wouldn’t have ended up in anything good either.”
At that mercilessly cold assertion, Oh Seungmin’s face, who had stuck to his principle of non-killing until now, turned pale.
But.
“...H-how do you know that, mister?”
“.......”
Junho’s gaze turned to Oh Seunga, who was beside Oh Seungmin.
She was barely around one hundred sixty centimeters tall, and she was looking up at Junho, who was more than a head taller than her and probably weighed more than twice as much, with trembling eyes.
Perhaps because she had remembered the brutal slaughter from moments ago, once her eyes met Junho’s, her body trembled so violently it was pitiful to see.
But the girl, who had somehow survived in a ruined world together with the one blood relative she had left and her school friends, forced herself to speak with courage.
“W-we’ve lived just fine until now without killing people, you know? I-I don’t know, maybe you’ve survived by killing everyone you run into, mister. But we’ve done fine our way....”
“You would have been eaten.”
“...Wh-what did you say?”
At those words, whose meaning she could not understand yet were chilling beyond description, Oh Seunga’s eyes widened.
With a face frozen like a plaster statue, Junho spoke in a low voice completely devoid of emotion.
“Those bastards I killed eat other humans. You would have been eaten.”
The stench Junho had smelled when he climbed onto their boat was the unique nauseating odor he had smelled from “cannibals” before his regression.